A few weeks ago, the court found that members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had expressed impermissible hostility to religion because of relatively mild statements that every business in Colorado should serve all customers regardless of the owner’s religion, and that terrible things have been done in world history in the name of religion. By contrast, the court in upholding the travel ban essentially ignored repeated statements from Trump and his top advisors that he wanted to ban Muslims from coming to the United States.”
The president initially promulgated the travel ban by executive order on Jan. 27, 2017. It suspended immigration from seven countries for a period of 90 days and suspended the refugee program for a period of 120 days. It had an exception for those who were from minority religions in these countries. The seven countries shared three things in common: All were more than 90% Muslim, Trump had no economic investments in any of them, and none ever had been linked to terrorist activity in the United States.”

On the Travel Ban Scotus Decision

“Of even greater significance is the court’s contention that great judicial deference must be paid to the president in immigration policies, and that his actions will be upheld so long as they are supported by a conceivable legitimate purpose. With this premise, the court made irrelevant all the statements Trump and his advisors made about their desire for, as candidate Trump put it, a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” The government’s claim that there is a national security justification for the ban is all that mattered. The dissenting justices in the travel ban case rightly analogize the majority’s ruling to the Supreme Court’s infamous decision in Korematsu vs. United States, which upheld the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Both policies were based on prejudice, not national security. In 1944, there was no evidence linking Japanese Americans to any threat to the country; there is now no evidence linking immigrants or visitors from the designated travel ban countries to terrorism. Although Roberts’ majority opinion repudiated Korematsu, the court ignored its crucial lesson.

Korematsu and now Trump vs. Hawaii represent the false assumption that danger to the nation can be determined by a person’s nationality or country of residence. In the United States, dangerousness should never be determined by race, ethnicity, national origin or country of residence. The Supreme Court ignored that fundamental American principle and created a precedent that gives the president vast powers to discriminate. It may be a victory for President Trump, but it is a huge loss for the Constitution and the rule of law.” Erwin Chemerinksy

Comments (20)

As the recent decisions demonstrate as clearly as possible, elections have consequences. It’s not law; it’s politics.

pgl

June 27, 2018 4:25 am

No worries. The moment we have a Democratic President, this Court will flip flop and put restrictions on Presidential power.

EMichael

June 27, 2018 7:21 am

Quite a week the SC has had. Now totally legal to suppress votes. And:

“Oh, and the 5-4 decision upholding the right of phony “crisis pregnancy” centers in California to refuse to provide information about abortion to their clients, in contravention of state law, is pretty freaking heinous, too. This is great fun.”

With its five more conservative justices in the majority, the court ruled 5-4 in favor of American Express and its “gag orders” — which forbid merchants that contract with American Express from encouraging customers to use other credit cards — even though these restrictions are blatantly anticompetitive and raise prices for consumers.”

Kevin Drum links to a NYTimes article on how the American Express decision devastates anti-trust law. I wish it was not behind the NYTimes pay wall as it does seem that these Federalist want to insure crony capitalists can rip the rest of us off.

Erwin tried to get Kennedy to retire before Obama got down to one year. Kennedy had more impact on the court than most Justices with his biased viewpoints. Without a doubt, his retirement will condemn this nation to decades of flawed pseudo-conservative direction. As Jack has stated, we will not live to see the end of this.

Jeff Fisher

June 27, 2018 3:10 pm

And yet both Clinton appointed supreme court justices found against all of these.

But, both sides!!!!!

ilsm

June 27, 2018 4:49 pm

The terror state travel ban is not Muslims.

If it were against Muslims it would be against Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Gulf sheiks, so forth, the Salafi Muslims who sponsored 9/11, war on the poorest nation in the world (Yemen) and are tearing apart Syria.

Muslims with oil and gas money who fund terrorism are not affected.

It also covers North Korea.

What Trump says in campaign stops does not make his orders wrong.

Ascribing motive is for juries in criminal trials.

JackD

June 27, 2018 4:56 pm

Assigning motives: for commissioners in Colorado but not Presidents.

@Pgl, there will not be a liberal court in your lifetime no matter who gets elected President. Maybe the Democrats ought to revive Roosevelt’s plan and stack the court. Then the Republicans can do the same when they get back to power, and on and on ’til the court is bigger than the rest of the government.

run75441

June 27, 2018 5:38 pm

Dems have to take Congress and legislate around SCOTUS.

Jeff Fisher

June 27, 2018 5:12 pm

What the democrats should do, if they ever take full power, is pack the court enough to negate mcconnell’s shenanigans and author a constitutional ammendment to specify 9 justices on staggered 9 year terms to fix this broken bit of the constitution.

JackD

June 28, 2018 3:02 pm

Kennedy, himself, will bear much of the responsibility for what follows. He didn’t have to announce now. He could have waited until after the midterms and allowed the Democrats (if they took over the Senate, a big if) to moderate the next choice. Ironically, it’s how he got on the court after the Democrats stopped Reagan from appointing Bork and Ginsberg. Kennedy was the beneficiary of that and so was the nation considering how Bork or Ginsberg would likely have performed.

run75441

June 28, 2018 8:08 pm

Jack:

Kennedy knows what he is doing to the nation. This was no mistake and it is a cold and calculated decision on things he would not do or advocate while he was in SCOTUS.